EVANSTON, Ill. — The star of the show for Friday night’s Penn State at Northwestern game was New Ryan Field.
The new, $875 million venue debuted to an incredible introduction on Friday night with a light show and fireworks.
NFL scouts, like anyone, can be lured in by a new shiny toy. Chicago is an easy city to get to, so the overflow auxiliary press area was filled with NFL scouts at kickoff as the Nittany Lions and Wildcats opened the new stadium.
By halftime, almost all of them were gone.
The game was lopsided, with Northwestern running the ball all over the Penn State defense on the way to what became a 34-13 rout. It also featured surprisingly few players able to hold the scouts’ interest.
Northwestern, despite dominating Friday’s game, is not a talent powerhouse, but Penn State has been one of the most consistent producers of NFL talents in recent memory. Eight Penn State players heard their names called last April. There have been at least five Nittany Lions selected in each of the the last nine draft classes.
It’s safe to say that streak is in serious jeopardy. When it comes to legit 2027 NFL Draft talent on the Nittany Lions, there isn’t much.
I talked to one NFC scout I know, who said, “this is the least-talented Penn State team I can remember.”
Of course, it does not take sources within NFL talent departments to determine that a Penn State team that got taken to the woodshed by Northwestern might be lacking some compared to its recent title-contending teams.
But fair or not, the circumstances of Matt Campbell’s hire mean that he is being evaluated with a jaundiced eye on every win and loss by this fanbase and the boosters that settled on hiring him after striking out with what were perceived to be better options.
Add Nittany Sports Now as a preferred source in Google! Click here to add us.While certainly, Campbell deserves a decent amount of the blame for Penn State’s 3-2 start, I think I certainly under-estimated the talent drain that occurred to this PSU roster over the last calendar year, and I think many others have, as well.
Campbell brought a lot of players with him from Iowa State, and that certainly had the advantage of bringing players that were familiar with his scheme, but they were players from Iowa State.
Part of the reason that made Campbell an attractive hire in the first place is that he was widely considered to have won a lot of games at Iowa State and did so with what was largely considered to be inferior talent.
Taking that talent to a higher level was probably not a winning strategy. Players like Rocco Becht do not seem to be making the transition to playing winning football at a higher level. Add an injury to Koby Howard, and the Penn State offense looks downright incapable at times. On Friday, the defense was even worse, getting caved in by a very Northwestern rushing attack with few bona fides.
Campbell can and should own that, but I also don’t know that there was enough time, enough talent available in the transfer portal, and enough money available to do a lot better in one offseason.
The theory of replacing a coach like James Franklin with a coach like Campbell is that Franklin was a recruiter first and foremost. In the era of NIL, that shouldn’t matter as much. Penn State should get the players it can afford to get, not the players that it is convincing to sign up.
Campbell is an Xs and Os guy who has elevated teams with less talent in the past. Even when Penn State gets back to putting a roster that is in line with its prowess on the field, the Lions will still be looking at Big Ten heavyweights like Ohio State. If the job is to find a way over, around or through the better-heeled teams in the league, then Campbell can be fairly evaluated when he has a team that is at least capable of doing so.
Campbell deserves a chance to put together a team that could legitimately be expected to contend and to see if he can do better with it than his predecessor did — that’s the whole point of him being here.
But hey, the world isn’t fair, and I don’t expect Penn State fans to be patient. No one wants to lose to Northwestern, even if the Wildcats do now have the nicest house on the block.
